


In Every Life some Rain Must Fall

by karrenia_rune



Category: Chinese Mythology, Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, Dragons, Gen, The White Dragon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 17:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A retelling of the legend of the origin of the White Water Dragon and how it impacts the lives of one peasant boy and his entire village.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Every Life some Rain Must Fall

The mix I made for this story can be found on Spotify here: http://open.spotify.com/user/1234865710/playlist/2fkE6COxJXslz22IATJgMi

“In Every Life some Rain Must Fall” by karrenia

There was hardly a breath of air stirring for almost the entire length of the river that had flowed through the Huang Province for as long as anyone could remember. The river that had once been lively and ardent as it flowed down from the mountains to the east and branched along its many tributaries now was a bare shadow of its former self.

The heat lay upon the land like a living thing, but it had no form, no shape. While it could not been seen or touched; nonetheless everyone could feel the heat on their bodies. During the day the sun beat shone like an eye of a god, by the day, with the sun at its most distant remove, replaced by the moon, the heat was much less.

The river had always been the life-blood of the village, and the rains that they had once prayed for daily had stubbornly refused to come. Yet, the villagers being dutiful and devout continued to pray, and still the rains would not come. 

The river soon dried up, the waters for their crops and livestock and their own drinking soon had to be carefully rationed, and yet they continued to pray.  
After a great while, the prayers became a matter of routine, in the manner of a villager who routinely checks his patch of vegetables while on his way to other more important tasks.

Soon, it became apparent that they were suffering a very long drought. A drought that preyed upon lay on their hearts and minds even more than the oppressive heat. Heat and cold, they could endure, but without the live-giving rain to sustain them, that cut straight to the bone.

Many generations of farmers and artisans that had called this westernmost province home. For some of them, the doings and thoughts of those in the royal capital were as remote as more than sheer distance could possibly make them.

It could be seen that if they did not fall within the immediate purview of the capital, it did not see them and they did not see it. Whatever the case may be, the people in Huang Province’s lives were in their families, their livestock, their crops, their weavings, their religious observances, and even, yes, their legends; for them, nothing else mattered.

Their lives were taken up the everyday necessities and the tasks involved with the cycles of farming, planting, and harvesting their crops, and raising their families, it had been this way many a generation, and many had come to believe that it would remain so, unchanging and as constant as the rising and setting of the sun. 

No one had ever even had a glimmer of a glimmer of doubt in their minds that this state of affairs was not natural; or that it could have been otherwise had circumstances been different. 

A boy, no more than ten or eleven years of age, by the name of Ah Bao although most everyone he knew including his feeling shortened his name to Bao, for short; felt an unaccustomed but undeniable and powerful need to get out of the house for a little while, crept out the back of his family’s communal house and stealthily crept unseen towards the well in the center of the village.

He had a plan, half-formed and rather vague, but a plan nonetheless, and one which involved evading his responsibilities for the day and being off by himself. It was a rare that he had a chance to just sit and think and be alone. Living in the village meant that they lived so close to the land in with each other that such opportunities were few and far between. 

He simply could not afford to lose the chance while he had it. So, resolved, he jumped off of the porch of his home, then made a mad dash across the fields with all the speed and wariness of a rabbit, and then to fetched up beside the central well in the village square.

Evincing all the wary alertness of a stalking animal, he glanced around to make certain that no one else was around or could bear witness to the fact of his sneaking off. While it was not strictly forbidden to be out by the river bank; his destination for the afternoon, it was also frowned upon by his stern parents.

In the back of his mind, Bao thought, “I deserve some time to be off by myself. Surely I do?  
Besides, I’ll stick to the shallows and won’t even be gone very long.’ And should anyone catch me up I can always claim that was out here gathering firewood. ‘

So, following on the heels of that particular thought Bao darted away from the side of the well, ran parallel to the furrowed fields where the late spring peas were being tended and, and then down the dirt track to the river bank shallows. He sat down in his favorite spot and paused while his racing heart-beat gradually returned to normal. He had always been drawn to the water, for whatever reason. 

Although he could not have explained why this was so; it simply was a fact of his life. 

Gradually the soothing sounds of a river bank in the late spring day, although a glance up at the sky indicated that the afternoon was now far advanced and that he should really think about his route him; but even as he considered he felt drowsiness creep over him and his felt sleepy, so very sleepy, so that he fell asleep

As he mind drifted free of his body, in the unmapped realms of dream, Ah Bao dreamed that he found a shiny red stone, so shiny and red that reminded him of the shiny persimmon flower that his mother and grandmother both cultivated in their garden back home. The stone glittered even through the tall reeds at the river bank. In his dream, Ah Bao smiled, and determined that he would look for the stone when he woke up.

When he at last woke up, much to his surprise the shiny red stone from his dream was indeed in the reeds, he had to use a branch that he broke off from a nearby tree to work it loose from the reeds, but at last he had it in hand. He immediately retraced his route home and put the shiny red stone in his rice crock, soon his crock was overflowing with rice, more than he could ever eat. Then he placed the stone in his money jar; and that too, overflowed. It must be magical!

Not being the sorts that questioned their sudden good fortune, coupled with the kind and generous that they were Ah Bao’s family immediately shared their bounty with their friends and fellow villagers.

And for a while all was well, until the rain, while never plentiful to begin with, stopped coming all together, the river, the site of many of his boy-hood adventures, dried up and with no source of water immediately available, so did the crops. 

Not knowing what else to do, Ah Bao placed the stone in his water bucket, however, much to his surprise instead of overwhelming as all the other objects had done, the stone instead absorbed every last drop of water in the bucket.

The very next evening Ah Bao experienced one the strangest dreams he had ever had; in it he stood high above the terraced and regular fields of his village, on air as it seemed with nothing to support him or prevent a long fall to the hard-packed ground below but his own will. He thought that he should have been frightened of this, but instead found it oddly exhilarating. 

He now stood or rather hovered directly in front of the majestic, tapered sinuous body of a white water dragon, dancing in the clouds and showering the land with the rain that they badly required in order to sustain themselves and their crops. 

“Mother, father, I have had the strangest dream,” announced Bao around the communal breakfast table the following morning, in between spoonful’s of rice and beans and sips of hot tea.

“Tell it to us,” my son,” coaxed his father, encouragingly, but who, at the moment when he thought that his son was not watching him, exchanged a significant glance with his wife; a glanced that seemed to say without words that once they had heard out the retelling of their son’s dream, they could then dismiss it as nothing more than a dream. 

They could persuade their son that the dream had been nothing more than a product of an over-active imagination, or something that he had eaten last night. There were many, quite solid and practical explanations to dismiss the dream as nothing more than just another night fantasy, and that there was nothing at all prophetic or supernatural about it.

Ah Bao senior was a practical man, a man who in an effort to provide for his family had never held much stock in dreams, of any kind.

Ah Bao heaved a deep sigh, one closed his eyes for a heartbeat or two, as if attempting to summon the fantastic substance of his dream, back to his waking mind, before he opened his eyes once more and launched into his retelling.

“It started out in a quite ordinary fashion, but in the way of dreams, the change from one place to another took place suddenly but not so as to frighten me. Soon I was hovering in mid-air above the village and facing me as if it knew me was a white water dragon.”

His mother and father paused for a short while to exchange significant glances with one another, and clasped hands under the long trestle table where their son could not see. In the back of her mind, his mother thought, 

‘I had hoped that this day would never come to pass. A part of me that beats with a mother’s love for her son would wish that he remain here with us. Another that believes in dreams and portents, and all the old legends believes that this is a true dream, one that should be heeded.’

His father’s thoughts seemed to run parallel to those of his spouse, for he too thought, “If this is a true dream, and not one sent to trick us, and make an already dire situation even worse.” 

She shrugged slender shoulders and then said. “I would seem that we have little choice than to heed its message. She could tell, even without making eye contact with her husband, that he did not like or agree with that response, but much like a wheel rolling downhill; what had begun go only go in one direction. Turning her attention back to her son she said: “Please, go on.”

“In front of me, as real as all of you sitting around me, was a white water dragon. It spoke no words, nor did I, but it spoke to me all the same." It wanted to help me, I know it did,” exclaimed Ah Bao.

“Dreams are never wholly true or wholly false, however, it would take a better trained eye than mine to interpret the meaning behind this one, Ah Bao,” his father replied.

“It was a true dream” Ah Bao replied indignantly. He knew what he knew and it hurt his feelings a bit that his parents did not see the matter in the way that he did, but he was also an obedient and dutiful boy, most of the time, and held his tongue.

“Then you think that there is a hidden message behind this dream?” he asked after a moment or two, not entirely willing to let the matter drop.

“It is possible,” his mother replied quietly. She had not missed the unspoken words that her husband had conveyed through that brief exchange of looks, and she, too, while a practical woman, knew that sometimes destiny wove strange patterns on the loom of the world, and who were they to contest that? 

Yet, her heart was torn, knowing that whatever else would happen, Ah Bao,, her son, had been her pride and joy, and as much as she might wish that her remain her little boy, and then watch him grow up to become a young man, the discovery of the magical red stone, meant that such a thing was not to be.

As she listened to his retelling of his dream, watching the way his cheeks colored with excitement and his arms gestured emphatically, rocking back and forth on the woven rattan chair that he sat on, his brown eyes glittering with barely suppressed emotion, she swore she could catch a glimpse of the young man that he was on threshold of becoming. 

At that moment she suddenly recalled something that her own mother had once said of another young man, “He has to grow into that face, and that was certainly true of her son, he had the height and showed the promise of growing into it. 

Their reactions were a mixed; some exclaimed with astonishment that such a thing could even be. 

Others insisted that he had been listening too long to the stories of the ancient legends that told of tricksters, shape-shifters and the long-vanished, now thought to be myths, race of dragons. 

He very badly wanted to believe that dragons could be real, could be something more than a legend, but a part of him knew that in the everyday waking world, magic and other creatures out of the legends simply did not mix; they were like proverbial oil and vinegar, the two were simply not compatible with each other. But a boy could dream, right? Surely there was no harm in dreaming that such things were possible.

Soon, the every-days tasks took precedence over the discussion and had everyone in the household dispatched to their chores, and the discussion over the dream and its possible interpretations where pushed aside.

It was only later, in the evening after supper had been cleared away that his grandmother came to see him in his small room, that was barely more than an alcove with a sleeping pallet, but it was safe and it was his, which was more than some could say.

His grandmother, who was a storyteller, took him aside and sat him down with her on a hand-stitched floor rug, hugging him and cooing to him, and calling him many a pet-name, all the while tugging on his arm and mussing his hair.

When she had settled herself comfortably and seen that she had his undivided attention, she began:

“Best you listen close to me, my boy. I shall not waste my breath telling you this twice, but it is very important, that you do, because it could save your life one of these days.”

Raised in a cultured that held a vast respect for its elders, Ah Bao did as his grandmother asked and sat down on the rug with his legs crossed length-wise beneath him. “Yes, grandmother, I’m listening.

“A very long time ago, there was once the first legendary Emperor of China, Huangdi, who used a snake for his coat of arms. According to the myth, every time he defeated a group of people he incorporated their emblem into his own. This is why the dragon sometimes appears to have the features of other animals.”

“Tell me more, grandmother!” Ah Bao exclaimed eagerly.

His grandmother allowed herself a small smile of both amusement and a bit of chagrin. While she was old, she, too, could recall what it was to be young. She also knew that while her grandson was brave and capable, there was also a danger in his being over-eager. 

“Patience, young one, there is much to tell you. Also, I am old woman and prefer to do so at my own pace.”

Chagrined at the mild rebuke Bao calmed down and resumed his seat on the woven floor rug. “Of course, do go on.”

His grandmother offered her grandson a slight smile and continued: “Myths also say that the dragon has nine anatomical resemblances, according to Han Dynasty scholar Wang Fu: The head of a horse or camel, the tail and neck of a snake, horns of a stag, eyes of a demon, belly of a clam, scales of a carp, claws of an eagle, soles of a tiger, and ears of a cow. Upon his head he has a lump called a chimu which he must have in order to fly. In some depictions, the dragon has bat-like wings, in others he has none.” 

“How can they fly without wings?” asked Bao. Of all the questions roiling around in his head, this was the one that felt able to put into words.

“It is magic, or dragons are magic given physical form. Who can say?” his father interjected.

“Chinese dragons were believed to have 117 scales; 81 were of the yang essence, and 36 or the yin essence. In the yin and the yang, the dragon is the yang and his yin is the mythical Chinese Phoenix. The dragon is also seen this way in art and other depictions. If the dragon carries a flaming pearl beneath his chin, it can symbolize wealth, good luck, and prosperity. It is bad luck, however, to depict a dragon facing downwards, as he cannot ascend skywards.”

“The powers of the dragon are many. He can disguise himself as a silkworm, or become as large as the universe. He can fly in the sky or swim in the water. A dragon can form clouds, turn into water. Or change color like a chameleon, in addition to being able to glow in the dark. Water is a popular theme associated with dragons in Chinese mythology, as they are believed to have dominion over rivers, lakes, seas, or other bodies of water, in addition to being able to control the weather. The four Dragon Kings represent the East Sea, South Sea, West Sea, and North Sea.”

“And that is the type of dragon I am to seek after?” asked Bao excitedly. 

“Yes, my boy, but be warned, dragons are not the only magical creature that you will encounter, and they do not always fall into the predictable patterns of good and evil, black and white,” his grandmother warned Bao. “But, to answer your question, you must seek the White Water Dragon.”

“Where am I to look for him?”

“I can answer that one easily, to the east,” she replied.  
***

When morning came sending long fingers of sunlight arcing down on the land Bao set out on his quest, packing food and the magic stone in a rucksack that he carried slung over his shoulders. 

Moments before his departure, his young sister, Ah Mei, darted away and out to the front of the house, and wrapped her slender arms around his middle, trying not to cry at seeing her beloved older brother leave, “I will miss you, but I wanted to come and bid you farewell,” she exclaimed. “I love you.”

Untangling himself from his sister’s embrace, Ah Bao offered her a fond smile and reached down to muss her long, fine black hair. “I know you will, Ah Mei, and I love you, too.”

“Come, Ah Mei,” his mother called to her, and she took one last lingering look at her beloved older brother and dashed back into the embrace of their mother. His father and grandmother stood shoulder to shoulder as he walked away.

He tried not to look back at his family not only because it would be considered bad luck, but also because he could not afford to have cold-feet, or second-thoughts about his undertaking. He had already made all the good-byes that he could, as much as he would miss them, a person undertaking a quest must be bold and courageous and forth-right, or so he had always believed. 

So, resolved, he squared his shoulders and with the rhythmic routine of left foot then right foot and then left again, Bao, for the first time in his young life, left behind the only place he had ever called home and set out for parts unknown.

Lacking any better guide than his grandmother’s stories by which to go by, he headed east towards the rising sun.  
***  
First encounter:

At the foot of a tall mountain h met a giant snake whose massive body blocked all access to up the road at the foot of a mountain. Boa thought that he should have been more frightened of come face to face with a giant snake than he was at the present moment; however, people on quests, in the stories at least, even if they were afraid, always managed to push aside their fear and get on with whatever must be done.

He swallowed and locked gazes with the snake. It did not strike him as at all strange that the snake should be able to speak in a human tongue, when it hissed at him. “What do you want here, intruder?”

“I am sorry to bother you, Master Snake. But I am on a quest. I am seeking the White Water Dragon. Do you know where he might be found?”

The snake insisted that he will answer Bao’s questions in return for favor. At this point Ah Bao was convinced that the magical stone had far more potential for both ill and good fortune than anyone had ever expected. 

“I will do so, but first you must perform a small favor me.” The snake bobbed its triangular head at a boulder to its right and said “Do you see that rock, over yonder?”

“Yes.”

“If you remove it from off of my tail, I will answer your questions,” replied the snake.

Ah Bao looked around at his immediate surroundings, then back at the boulder, both the snake and the boulder were a good four or five times his size even when he stood on tip-toe with his chest puffed out. But being boy of both optimism and perseverance he thought of a ways that he might accomplish what the snake had asked him to do. 

Moving over to an area nearby where a pile of loose stones, scree, twigs and stones had accumulated, Ah Bao at last found the tool that he needed. Picking it up he considered the boulder, and at last hit upon the idea of using his long branch as a lever, and inserting into between the bottom of the boulder, and it with a heave managed to move the boulder off of the snake’s tail.

“Ah, thank you, human. In reward for your efforts, I give you one of my scales. It will prove to be very useful in your journey.”

“Thank you,” Ah Bao replied gravely, accepting the proffered scale and carefully placing into his ruck-sack.

“No, thank you. But before you go on your way, the Water Dragon that you seek dwells far to the east of here, but I feel compelled to warn you that you will also meet a greedy red monster on the way, “said the snake.

“Thank you for the warning, I shall take it into consideration,” the boy replied.

2nd encounter

He next met a giant carp swimming in a dry river bed who asks if Boa will move to a nearby well. 

By this time Ah Bao figured if a giant snake could take, why not a giant carp, ah having been raised to be a dutiful boy, and feeling sorry for the poor creature, he immediately scooped the carp up in his hands and walked over and placed the fish inside the well. 

The carp was so effusive in its thanks that Ah Bao felt a little bit overwhelmed and tried to shrug it off, “Really, really, you are quite welcome. I’m certain that if I had not come along someone else would have, eventually.”

“No, no,” replied the carp. “Do you not see yet? It is as if fate or something else has conspired to have our paths cross. If you do not, then I hold out hope that you soon will.”

“I have never been certain of destiny, although what you see makes me feel things, things I can yet give a name to. Sometimes I feel as if I am holding a bag and I can feel its significant bumps and vague outlines of its contents.”

“But you can still not determine its contents,” finished the carp, turning loops inside the well, and then stood up on its tail so it had a better vantage point by which to regard the young human boy. “I think I grasp your meaning. “I wish to offer you due payment for the service you have rendered me this day. Here is one of my scales, feel free to take it, for it will prove of great value to you on journey.”

“Thank you,” the boy replied.

“Good bye and good fortune,” the carp replied, and dove deeper into the well.

As he walked on, Ah Bao thought over what the carp had said about destiny and journeys, and although he had been born and raised in village and a family of modest means and a humble upbringing, he still could not help but feel that something, whether fate or something else had picked him out for greater things, perhaps greater than anyone could guess at.

He also knew that he had very far to go before he was finished. Following shortly on the heels of ‘that particular thought, came another one, “I have begun this quest, and I will not give up on it, no matter what happens. It is not just me, but my family and village that is depending on me.’

****

3rd encounter

He had been walking for a very long time and as evening drew closer Bao decided to make camp in a forest glade. He had just gathered firewood for and had broken it up into kindling, and formed into a rough triangle on the ground. He took out his flint and began to bang them together in order to make a fire for the night.

Just as he had a decent fire going and rummaging in his sack for the ingredients of a decent evening meal, he was distracted from this task by the sound of an alternating whiffling and thumping. At first, as he listened closely, he thought nothing more than a product of his owe weariness and over-active imagination. But just as he was throwing his soup mixture into and a handful of dried fish into a pot and it was simmering away, the sound came again; much louder this time.

It sounded as if it originated from somewhere nearby. 

But, what with looking around in every direction, Ah Bao could not immediately determine its source. His stomach rumbling with hunger, but his restless mind stirring with equal if not more intense curiosity, he got up from his seat on the forest floor and got up to look for the source of the strange noise.

He came upon a rather odd sight, a red deer whose antlers had somehow become stuck in the hollow of a pine tree.

Asking the deer as he had inquired of all the other creatures that had crossed his path, he asked. “Do you have any idea where I might find the Water Dragon?”

“If you help get my antlers unstuck, I will tell you where he is,” replied the deer.

Ah Bao considered the problem from various angles; the antlers were in there very snugly indeed. 

The hollow of the tree in which the deer had gotten stuck was too narrow for his hands to find leverage by which to push them out and too high from him to reach. 

Then he considered the deer’s antlers, they were a 3-pointer meaning that while the deer was old enough to have grown into them he had also not yet attained his full growth. He had no wish to hurt the animal but at the same time he did not want to the deer to end up inadvertently hurting himself by banging his head against the trunk of the tree.

At last, Ah Bao realized that his only choice at this point was to return to his campsite, get his axe and extract the deer from his predicament, with any luck the deer, with time could grow  
another rack of antlers. He picked up the axe and scurried back to the pine tree and the deer, 

“I am going to cut you free, I am sorry if this will hurt you, but I see little other choice.”  
If a deer or other animal could be said to show the range of human expressions on its handsome face, this one did. “Do what you must,” the deer replied.

Ah Bao began to cut the antlers loose, and once the deer was free, the deer said.” Thank you, for you will require them on your journey, but while I am no fortune-teller or readers of omens in the sky and the land, my grandmother was one such, and a little of her talent has passed to me.”

“Tell me what you foresee!” exclaimed Ah Bao.

“You will encounter a greedy red monster who will covet all that you have. Take care!” And having said this, the young deer turned around and darted swiftly into the concealing shadows of the deep woods.

4th encounter 

Several days later as the deep woods gave way to mountainous country that dipped and rose, and he was forced to wrap rags around his boot in order to prevent the leather from cracking, Ah Bao was tramping along, with the mechanical repetition of placing his right foot down, followed by his left foot, when came upon an mother eagle and its young hatchling.

“Do you know where I can find the Water Dragon?” he asked, as he asked so many others.

“If you take my hatchling up to our nest, at the top of the cliff, I will tell you,” the eagle replied.

He regarded the cliff and then the baby eagle, and admittedly he was a bit daunted by the sheerness and heights that he would have to ascend in order to accomplish the task, but on the other hand, Ah Bao figured that he had come too far to quit now.

Picking up the hatchling and them wrapping the bird into his rucksack in the manner that he had seen his mothers and the various woman of his village do with their infants while they worked in the fields, Ah Bao figured that he could both carry the bird on his back and then have his arms and legs free to scale the cliff.

He reached the summit, panting and sweaty, but with a sense of accomplishment. He located the nest and as gently as he could manage set the baby eagle inside. That done, he collapsed onto the ground, and had just begun to wonder if now would be a good time for a nap, when the rustling sound of feathered wings interrupted his meandering and slightly muzzy thoughts.  
The mother eagle had arrived, and Ah Bao, despite his weariness tried to look alert. 

“Thank you, and in addition to my gratitude for helping me, I will give you a pair of my claws, which will prove of great use to you on journey,” the eagle said.

“You are very welcome, and thanks to you, too.”

The eagle bent its head to its offspring and then looked up, “Oh, one last word of advice, be warned, that you shall encounter a greedy red monster.”

Ah Bao, nodded and turned his head to look back in the direction that he had come from. “All of the other creatures that I have encountered thus far have also given me that particular warning.  
Can you tell me anything else about it?”

“I know little about it, except that it will try every means at its disposable to convince to part with that which it covets most. You must not give in, no matter what happens,” the eagle said.

Ah Bao dipped his head in acknowledgement and continued on his way.  
****

5th encounter 

In a cave that appeared to have been hollowed out less by the action of wind and weather and the passage of time, and more by crude yet crafty hands, Ah Bao realized that the path that he was on was leading him in that direction. 

If wished to go on, he would have to venture into the cave. The cliff path zigged and zagged and in any case, if it proved to be a bad choice he could simply back-track and find another way.

The climb did not look to get any easier the farther he ascended into the heights of the mountains, and whenever the mood struck to look back in the direction from which he had come, he marveled at far he had come, but when he looked up again, there was still much farther to go. 

He shrugged, and realized that no matter what happened; it would always be better policy to go forward rather than backwards.

He paused for a moment to take a swig from the water bottle that hung from his hip and then carefully placed it back in its place. Then Ah Bao paused to crouch down, with his hands resting upon his knees as he sucked in deep breaths of the frosty air, slowly in and out, until he got his wind back.

When he felt fit enough he got up and continued on his way, the sun now stood high in the sky when he the branching path at last brought out and around a bend and ended at the mouth of wide cave, a cave that appeared to have been in this place for a very long time. 

For reasons that he could not have explained, there was something about the cave, that drew him on, as if an invisible cord had been tied around his body and tugged, tugged him onward saying ‘come to me, come to me. You belong here.’

“What nonsense,” Ah Bao scoffed, “As if I ever belonged inside a dirty, smelly old cave.”

When he entered the cave, there was very little illumination by which to make out any of the features, except that he could dimly see by the light of the moon seeping in through the entrance and the light of smoky torches that had been placed in sconces very high up, beyond where the light was swallowed up by shadows.

He squared his shoulders and ventured about half a man’s length into the deeper interior of the cave, careful not to make too much noise. 

As grateful as he was to have a little light by which to see, the torches also indicated that something else, something with an intelligence ranking on that of a human being dwelt here, and whether it would prove to be friendly or dangerous, was still very much up in the air.

He walked farther and farther, and then he came upon a chamber in the heart of the cave, this one also lit by the same smoky torches, seated upon a throne was an big red monster, heavily muscled creature, wearing only a loin-cloth around its massive waist.

Ah Bao gulped, although he had paid heed when the other creatures that he encountered on his journey had warned that he would met a greedy red monster, he was not prepared for the reality of doing so.

“Who goes there?” the monster exclaimed.

Ah Bao gulped and approached the foot of throne. “Please, if I may, Sir.” He was nothing if not a polite, well-mannered boy. “May I ask you if you know the whereabouts of the Water Dragon?”

“The Water Dragon?” the red monster repeated, reaching up to rub at its beardless chin, as if musing on the question.

“Ah, can’t say as if I’ve been asked that particular question in a many an age.” He chuckled. 

“Many an age of puny mankind, you see. Being as I don’t get many visitors. My neighbors, if so polite a term can be used, the eagles, they disdain to stick their beaky noses up here. Say it smells bad.”

Not wanting to upset the monster, Ah Bao simply nodded. Although the chamber and the cave did indeed smell bad, too much fat and crease and the sickly sweet scent of something burning. He suddenly wished that he could get his questions answered as quickly as possible and then be on his way.  
***  
Ah Bao, felt it would not be good idea and a very a close shave with the greedy red monster that all the other animals had warned him about. 

Quickly seeing that he would be over-matched no matter what he did, he thought quickly about his options. It did seem as if the creature did not seem at all interested in making Bao himself a mid-day snack, but instead had been literally eye-balling the sack in which he carried the magical red stone.

Ah Bao figured that he could possibly bluff his way out of this one, although it would be dangerous to do so. His confidence had been grown steadily through the various encounters with the other creatures that he had met along his journey, and he figured he had learned a thing or too along the way. He would not have wished to wager on the outcome if it turned out that he had gambled and made a bad guess. 

As he cautiously approached the foot of the dais on which the red creature sat, he asked as respectfully and boldly as he could: “Do you have any idea of where I might find the White Water Dragon?” 

“You will be unable to find the Water Dragon without the dragon ball,” the red-skinned creature replied, languidly waving one massive hand.

“What does a dragon ball look like?” Bao asked. He could not help but be curious at this odd turn in the conversation, after all he had come through to reach this point. In the back of his mind, Ah Bao thought 

‘This is must be a significant clue in my quest to find the Water Dragon.’  
“Hmm,” mused the giant red creature, “that is an excellent question, and lucky for you, boy, one for which I have a very good answer.”

“Please, Sir, do go on.”

“Sir, is it? Hah! Hah! I have not been called Sir, in many a generation. It would seem that someone has seen quite well to your upbringing, young man. If I had known that I would be receiving such polite and well-spoken company I would have baked a cake, or at least picked up around here a bit more.”

“About the dragon ball?” he prompted, eagerly, perhaps more eagerly than he should have under the circumstances and taken into consideration the volatile nature of his ‘host’. 

However, by this time Ah Bao was very tired, but at the same time could not help but feel that the end of his quest was in sight. 

He was so close that he could almost smell it, if he had tried to extend his will and his reach as far as it would go that he could reach out and touch it. The smell of and touch of it was a heady feeling indeed.

“You are persistent, I’ll grant you that. Ah yes, the dragon ball. It is round and spherical, and as a red as the heart of a ruby. To the untrained eye, many will mistake them for nothing more than a shiny bauble. But ah, if one knows what to look for, they are more, so much more.”

After a moment’s consideration, a thought suddenly occurred to Ah Bao; one that hit him with all the force of a sucker punch to the gut, that perhaps, the magical red stone that he had been carrying for so very long, that he had almost forgotten about it, could be one and the same.

And he then reached into his pocket of his travelling cloak and held up the magical red stone.

Much to Bao’s alarm, the greedy red monster shouted and beat his massive chest exclaiming all the while that the magical stone was not Bao’s to either have or guard and that it should belong to him. 

Alarmed and a little fearful for his own skin by this point Bao turned and ran, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs and his legs pumping for all that he was worth. Behind him he both feel and hear the massive red creature alternately threating to eat him up and cajoling him to come back and be reasonable, that all would be forgiven if he simply gave up possession of the dragon ball.

“Ah, how torn am I!” the reddish creature exclaimed. “I the dragon ball must be mine and with it my possession I too shall be master of all I survey! Give it to me, wretched mortal! Give it now!”

“No! I shall not!” Ah Bao cried.

“If you do not, I will squeeze you and squeeze until you squeak, and then grind up your bones for a soup!”

“I can’t give up now!” You simply don’t understand, this is a part of my quest.”

“Your quest, HAH!” raved the creature who was not hot in pursuit of the boy.

Not knowing what else to do, but all too aware that if he gave up his quest now, that his family and villagers would suffer for it, Ah Bao swallowed the magical stone and jumped off the edge of the cliff. 

He was falling and falling, for what felt like an eternity, but instead of coming down on something hard he instead landed in a deep dark pool of water at the base of the cliff. 

In an instant’s time Bao felt such an uncommonly overwhelming thirst that he began to scoop up water by the handfuls and began to drink and drink, and drink until the waistbands of his breeches felt tight as a drum against his skin, and still he could not stop drinking. 

It seemed that his thirst was unquenchable. He drank and drank, swimming with the current as he went, and yet he did not sink or drown. The water, wherever its source might be, kept him buoyant and safe, and while he floated, he gulped down more and more of the precious water. 

Every so often, he did pause to wonder why he was experiencing such an overwhelming thirst; it was as if in his young life, after the drought that his village had experienced recently, that he was trying to make up for in a moment’s time. Soon, even that great thirst was exhausted.

***  
Transformation

He felt so calm and a buoyant, that he felt that no matter what happened next that he could drift with the tide and wash up on whatever shore received him. A remote part of his mind had a dim recollection that his self-imposed quest was not yet fulfilled, yes he had promised to find the Water Dragon and petition it to the desperately needed rainfall back to his home and family. 

But had he found the Water Dragon? 

No, he had not. But if the greedy red monster, who had first tried to cajole and then plead, and then threaten him for the magical red stone that he now learned was a dragon ball, then he was much further along in his quest than anyone had anticipated.

In the back of his mind, he thought. ‘I wonder if I will know the Water Dragon when I see him, I wonder if he is out there somewhere waiting for me to come to him, or is this curious floating sensation his way of communicating with me? Because I feel as if I were both an inhabitant of my own skin, all flesh, blood and bone, and yet, not a part of it.’ 

He continued to float in this curious nebulous world, sidereal to the real, waking physical world, for some time, a time that Ah Bao did not measure or mark. 

All of a sudden, Ah Bao’s body was wrapped in snake-skin, the deer’s antlers had been attached to his head and his back was covered with scales like the carp fish he had meet at the dried up river bed. 

His hands and feet had been replaced with the claws that the eagles had given to him, and his eyes had become red and shiny just like the dragon ball that he had swallowed to escape from the greedy red monster.

From the outset of his quest he had believed that he would find the white water dragon and it he would be able to coax the magical creature to help him restore the desperately needed rainfall to his home province. Never in his wildest imaginings had ever dreamed that he himself would become the dragon. 

He laughed and laughed with the sheer joy of flying, of being free of the limitations and constraints of his human body. He darted and swooped, and turned overlapping loops in the air. When he exhaled, huge puffs of white vapor jetted out from his gaping mouth, a mouth that was filled with long, sharpened teeth. ‘AH, this is marvelous, simply marvelous.’

It was exhilarating and frightening at the same time, but the fear soon evaporated in the rush of sounds, smells and sensations that rushed like a cascade of water that sprang from the heights of the mountains and he began to swoop and dive and blow small puffs of white vapor from his whiskered nostrils. 

He felt a sense of freedom that was unlike anything he had ever experienced before in his life. 

The dragon’s blood streamed through him, and he felt as if he could reach out and touch everything that ever was, or could be in the world, from the smallest snake to its giant cousin he had met at the foot of the mountain, the carp in its well, the eagle in is high eyerie, the deer in the pine forest, and all other manner of creatures. 

His dreaming mind stretched and leaped across the distances he had traversed to reach this point; the places he had seen, he saw the gleaming, teeming capital, the people who dwelt there as they went about their daily lives, and watched them for a time.

 

Yet, even as he watched, whenever two or more people were together, or even gathered into large crowds for a royal pageantry or a feast, laughing, talking, drinking, he could not hear them, and he had to wonder what that was so, what it was that prevented him from being able to hear, with his bat-winged shaped ears.

'At last,' he thought, ‘It would appear that these lives were meant for me to merely observe and not to directly communicate or interact with. ‘ 

His meandering thoughts shuddered and jumped forward once again; this time he was hovering in the air above his home province with the terraced fields scattered below him like miniature green, brown and black patchwork squares; and if any part of him remained, he wished he could make himself heard. 

Suddenly a thought came to him, as sudden as lightning bolt in the midst of a summer storm. 

“Everything matters, and everything wants to matter.” Overcome with emotions, some he could put a name too, and others that he could not, Ah Bao, wept, and these were not tears of sorrow, but a means of expressing himself in the way of the dragon-kind. 

Until now, he had never really given much thought to the ties that bound live together, but now, he did and what he felt was a kind of love that simply existed, and in that existence felt himself grow in ways that he never even dreamed of becoming. It was wonderful and heady, and a little frightening, if truth be told, and yet, he would not change things, even if he could.

He heard the sound of his own voice in his ears and realized that it sounded as loud as wind in tunnel, like the rainstorm pattering on the ground, and his tears stopped

“Now that fate or whatever else has come together to bring me to this point, I still have a duty unfulfilled.”

However, as exciting as this was, a fragment of memories of his duty to his people remained to him, and swiftly executed a looping circle in the air and began to fly back in the direction that he had come from to return to his home province.

“As eager as I am to return home and bring the rains back as I promised, I must be careful not to frighten them too much.” Following closely on the heels of that thought came another one: 

“How astonished they will be to see me!”

 

Conclusion 

He returned to his home village and restored regular rainfall and brought an end to the drought. 

The villagers had all gathered in the center, exclaiming aloud, and speculating on whatever could be the source of the loud roaring coming from the east. 

It had been building slowly, ever so slowly for the past day or so, and since the drought came and had never subsided in months, many did not know what this roaring could portend. 

There were as many rumors and half-truths as there were cook-fires, and as one grandfather who was the village doctor, once said. “Rumors are like snow hares in the winter, only a fool tries to run after them and catch them while wearing mittens.”

The sun, having now risen to just above the tree-line shot down lancing bolts of sunlight and back-lit the sky and the gossamer thin clouds with a rosy red glow. Suddenly a huge shadow obscured the clouds, and many among the crowd began to shout and exclaim in fear. Among these were those who had come to believe that praying for a miracle was to tempt fate, and that such a miracle would simply never come to pass.

The White Water Dragon took a moment to pause in its labors to gaze down upon the people below; seeming to sense awe, and wonder, and joy and a mix of other emotions that at the moment were too tangled up with his own for him to make heads or tails of. 

Drawing ever closer to the ground, his long sinuous scaly body undulating out behind him, he caught the awe-struck gazes of his family; his father foremost, his mother off to the left and behind him, and his grandmother standing on the porch of their home. 

She came down off the porch and strode toward where the rest of the family stood, with her arms folded over her chest. “Do you see what I see? she asked.

As if there were any doubt as to the truth of what her eyes beheld, “For as old as I am, my sight is the one thing that has not yet gone.”

“I see it, Grandmother,” replied Ah Bao’s younger sister. “I see it, and it is a miracle. Thank the heavens!” 

Although she was too young to be able to put into words the substance of the dream she had recently experienced only a handful of nights previous, Ah Mei, felt wonder and joy in her heart. 

In ways that she could not explain, even to herself, she had felt that the dream now made a reality, had been a prophetic one. To her dreaming mind, she had caught a glimpse of a white dragon as it flowed as effortlessly as a river in its fullness across the sky, as if it were borne along by the power of its winds, and made its way to Huang Province straight as an arrow from the shaft of a bow, to bring this miracle to them.

She too, had listened eagerly to her grandmother’s stories, but until now, had only believed them to be nothing more than stories; but the wonder and the rain splashing down upon her up-turned head was too much to not to believe in the legends anymore, and she began to laugh and laugh with the sheer wonder and pleasure of it all. “I believe now, oh how I believe!” she exclaimed.

“I do, as well,” replied Ah Bao’s father, in an awed tone of voice, one that shook slightly with overwhelmed emotion. “It is a miracle.” And here we had always believed that dragons were a myth, a story embroidered over time meant to entertain children, but nothing more than that.”

“Now the legends are made real, and in our lifetimes,” sighed Grandmother. “Ah, praise the heavens and all of our ancestors.”  
***

The Water Dragon had appeared to them like a burst of sunlight after a long duration of gray days followed by darker nights; he swooped down spraying water on the thirsty fields, filling up the rivers and lakes as he went, until it was as if an alchemical and magical transformation took place; all that had once been brown and withered now was green, and healthy and very much alive.

Sooner or later, the awe and it must admitted, even a little of the fear of the Water Dragon’s sudden appearance and its miracle gift of bringing the rains and restoring the land to what it once had been wore off. 

Still, the memories and the feelings that been evoked by everything that they had witnessed would linger with them for a long time to come.

However, these were practical hard-working people whose daily life of back-breaking work, and the necessities in raising their families and staying alive meant that there was little time left over for the world of supernatural. 

They gradually broke up into smaller groups and began to gather buckets and even heavy shirts that had been left hanging out to dry on lines that stretched between the various buildings; anything that would hold and contain the precious life-giving liquid.

Even practicalities sometimes had to give way to joy and rejoicing, and a day or too later, the village through a celebration that would be long remembered by everyone who had witnessed it.  
***  
As for Ah Bao, or the boy who had now become the Water Dragon, a part of him that still retained his human memories and feelings observed the celebrations from a great height. 

His heart ached to join in the festivities. He could see the lights of the red paper lanterns illuminating the night, as if their lights scattered all over the village sought to outshine the glittering pinpricks of light that were the stars.

There was dancing and enough food to go around and much merriment, such merriment as had not been seen in his home province for a very long time.

Yet, a part of him that had taken on the slow but subtle thoughts of dragon-kind knew that this could not be so, and he felt a little bit sad at this, but soon other voices, distant voices called to him to come and join them, to leave behind such frail concerns of the living and mortal-kind. 

The part of him that become more than he had ever dreamed was possible told him that the voices sounded like other dragons, calling to welcome to his new home in the waters and the skies of other parts of the land. 

“Come to us,” these other dragon voices cried. “Your task here is finished.”

“It is time to move on,” others stated.

“Just a little longer, then I will come to join you.” The Water Dragon replied, exhaling long streaming trailers of white vapor from its whiskered nostrils and mouth. 

“No, no, come to us…..” the voices, a few at first, but gradually growing in number were compelling and yet they did not sound at all frightening, a bit insisistent, yes, but not frightening at all.

“Welcome to your new home, welcome.”

“I had no idea it would be like this, and there is still so much for me to learn,” the white water dragon exclaimed. The pull, the yearning to belong to this newfound fellowship was become more and more difficult to resist, and there suddenly came a time when Ah Bao felt that should it come to it, he could simply slough off his mortal life and concerns, and give in to the summons.

“Then come, and we will teach all that you need to know.” 

There was a sense that they were expectant, kind, and eager to welcome him into their midst, and although others seemed a bit more leery of the newcomer.

“But that will take ever so long,” the newly reborn White Water Dragon exclaimed, his voice still retaining a bit of the wide-eyed young man that he had once been, but he somehow sensed that, too, would fade away and his voice would take on the otherworldly tones of dragon-kind.

“The lives of the dragon-kind are long, ever so long, so have no fear about that, young one.”

Other, sterner voices, grumped” I realize that this is difficult for you, that you are new to realties of becoming a dragon, but the lives of dragon-kind are lengthy and there will be time for all of that where we are going; come to us.”

“Where am I going?” he asked, quietly, and he heard his own voice echo in his mind rather than in his ears, however, as strange as this may have seemed only weeks ago, it did not seem strange at all now. In fact, now that he had become a dragon, perhaps that they communicated through their thoughts and emotions.

“To the Valley beyond the Clouds,” one of the kinder ones replied, and to his dreaming mind, it seemed and older and much more patient than the others voices.

“I have never heard of such a place,” Ah Bao replied.

“That comes as no surprise,” the stern voices replied. For no mortal ever has, until now. 

However, the fact remains, that is where we must go.”

The sterner, grumpier voices, that the newly minted White Water Dragon now understood belonged to those of other dragons, of all different hues. The sky that loomed above the sky that he had known all his mortal life was beautiful and magical as a rainbow, and if a dragon could grin, he grinned.

How he knew this, he could not have said, but the images and thoughts and knowledge of wind and weather, and water, and other such things that were the province of his new nature, came to him as easily as if they were now second nature to him. He exhaled and inhaled, sending puffs of giant rain clouds scudding across the sky, his tail, like a giant fan extended out from behind the long sinuous shape of his lizard-like body.

“Show me,” he said eagerly.

And with that Ah Bao, who once was a human boy, but had now become something else, could no longer resist the call of the dragon-kind and passed over into another world.  
**  
Soon, in seasons to come; the rains and the rivers and the fields of Huang Province were once more restored to their full duration and cycle. And everyone from the very youngest to the very oldest spoke well of the Water Dragon. 

It was only one family whose joy at this was over-shadowed by a mix of both pride and sorrow, for in their heart of hearts. For in order for the Water Dragon to become flesh and blood, and bone one boy had to subsume his own mortal life to the timeless life of the dragons. Yet, that would seem to be the nature of things and who were they to dispute that this should be so? 

Inspired by the children’s picture book, written and illustrated by Li Jian, in both English and Chinese.

**Author's Note:**

> The story was written for Round 1 of the Dragon Big Bang, inspired by a children's picture book.
> 
> An additional site to find the fanmix can be found on the file sharing site Media fire here: https://www.mediafire.com/#yde5hu16dm36d


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